Work hard now to pay off your mortgage by 30, and retire by 40

[Ieattoomuchsugar]

And to buy a house at 19/20 whatever age

Maybe exaggerating with the ages a bit but these are examples I've seen.

People who've gone without holidays, new clothes etc, lived with the bare minimum and worked endless overtime for years in order to achieve the above.

Has anybody actually done this or in the process of doing it?

I do see the appeal but I personally wouldn't want/wouldn't have wanted to spend my 20s and 30s living that way. I do think life is to be enjoyed, I of course want to save but I am not prepared to go without things I enjoy for such a long time. I think it's better to strike a balance, and I'd rather enjoy life now just as much as when I am 50/60.

We did this. Not entirely intentionally but we got lucky in business. It's great but not the normal.

The upside is the financial security and the choices we have. This trumps everything. Studies suggest a lot of stress and relationship issues are to do with money so I am very lucky. It means if I need to leave my job to care for parents or concentrate on the kids I can.

The downside is that others our age (mid 40s) aren't there yet. So we have to compromise on cost and quality when we go out/go on holiday with them.

I do know if some young people who have decided to do some kind distance lorry driving in the early twenties. They'll soon be on their way with a mortgage.

I'd say if you can without sacrificing all the social and physical enjoyment of your twenties, then do it. If you can earn and spend well in your twenties can set you up for life.

@Eleganz

It is all bollocks. Every single one of these stories has the younger people receiving some significant form of financial support by a parent or other benefactor if you look hard enough. Yes you might be able to do it by your 50s, but paying off a mortgage on a decent property by 30 with normal job? Fantasy.

That isn't true. I moved out at 18 and haven't had any form of financial support. Yes I was offered it but never took it. But I was 33 when I brought so perhaps those 3 years are importantm

I agree.
I wish I'd had the ability to gain a security buffer, however I'm quite settled on the idea of working as long as I am able.
I've seen too many people die young.

No. My mum died suddenly at 42 in an accident. Live life as if every day is your last. You never know what life will throw you.
I am not mid 40’s and don’t feel the same as in my early 20’s at all. Things hurt more. I’m far more scared of doing certain things as if I get moody injured, things hurt for far longer or take longer to heal.
I wanted kids so my 30’s were spend looking after little ones. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss raising them to work flat out.
Now they are teens and far less interested in outings and holidays with us. All the fun of that was in the precious years between age 5-11. Don’t waste those years working and not doing anything. They don’t come back.
Get out and have fun with whatever money you have in your 20’s do and experience as much as you can.
There is nothing like youth - mid 40’s just isn’t the same feeling.

We steer a middle path.It's good to prioritise paying off the mortgage. We're early 50s and mortgage is almost finished which is a nice thought. We have friends who are on interest only with no idea how they will pay the mortgage off or indeed retire, and that would worry me greatly.
Also know people our age who max out credit cards for the 0% interest, which again seems odd as we pay our cc off in full each month.
I expect to retire at 60 as I'm lucky enough for that to be the date my work pension is available. I also have some previous work pensions but may try to draw them later. Ideally I'd get offered voluntary redundancy in the next couple of years as the payout would cover my salary for a couple of years and I'd get some temporary contracting which is very well paid at the minute and retire a bit earlier.

In my 20s my male colleagues were in a position to do this if they were prepared to do the most stressful roles and the commitment that went with it. All looking to retire at 50 with big plans to travel etc.

Very few ever realised the dream. Either they or their partner had died or were in poor health. Some had had enough of travelling due to their jobs. Others had divorced and lost much of what they'd worked for - some because their partner had made a separate life whilst they were working all the hours necessary, or the sacrifices had got too much, or they realised they had missed out on their children growing up and started a new family with someone younger.

Putting life off to retire early wasn't an attractive option.

I don't know about other areas but I live in London (very lucky to be able to own our own place) but even if I did live this way, I doubt we'd get our mortgage paid off 🤣 anyways yeah life is to be enjoyed as much as you possibly can whilst also being reasonably sensible so you don't fuck your self over

It’s not that linear is it though. Seems to suggest that not having a mortgage means you free enough income up to retire? So saving 10 years of mortgage payments gives you enough to pay for what could be another 50 years, accepting the government pension will kick in at some point. Doesn’t add up, you’d be not working at 40 but not able to do much - and what if you had children to fund?

Does this not assume you buy a house and never move or upsize? No 19 year old is going for the 5 bedroom detached place, right?

I’m 46 and DH is 44. We could be mortgage free if we wanted - if we moved to a smaller house. Instead we plan move to a bigger house and then cash in in our mid to late fifties. For us it’s not about paying our mortgage off. It’s about equity building.

Retirement at 40 sounds depressing unless you've got masses of money so you can live your best life and never have to worry about running out of funds while you still need them. But that's an awful lot of money. For most people they'll be still be paying out to support their children until they are pushing 60 anyway.

We have friends who retired at 50, no children, reasonable but not huge company pensions. They have quite a nice house but they swapped their new cars for much older ones and they live a very frugal life indeed. They rarely eat out, take packed lunches everywhere they go, rarely buy anything new for their home, or new clothes or treats of any sort.

I'd have got fed up years ago if I were them. Their life is unbelievably boring, week in week out it's the same, and they still need to do occasional temp work to keep the coffers topped up. And that's after a lifetime of them both working full time in jobs that paid way more than average. I don't see the point in having all those extra years free time if you have to live so carefully and frugally that you can't really make the most of it. I'd rather retire at 60 and be able to spend 10-15 years having an absolute blast before I slow right down, than having 25-30 years of low budget tedium.

Say you start off in a smallish terraced house with no off street parking and a small garden then yes, it's perfectly doable to pay your mortgage off relatively quickly, so long as you don't ever want to upgrade in size/area etc, but in real life most people who can do that, do do it.

DH did this by buying a house with a friend and then buying the friend out at a later date.

I'd say if you can without sacrificing all the social and physical enjoyment of your twenties, then do it. If you can earn and spend well in your twenties can set you up for life.

At a huge cost, losing your 20s sacrificing the social and physical enjoyment of them is a cost too high, there are some things money can't buy and time is one of them.

I know two other people who have paid off a house at early 30's one from crypto (annoyingly in 2011 I turned down an opportunity to buy bitcoin mining rigs with him) and the other from share options from a startup he joined on leaving university. That over the next 8 years did very well.

@Mouseonmychair

I know two other people who have paid off a house at early 30's one from crypto (annoyingly in 2011 I turned down an opportunity to buy bitcoin mining rigs with him) and the other from share options from a startup he joined on leaving university. That over the next 8 years did very well.

I may have misunderstood, but you bought a house at 33, paid of the mortgage on 3 years and you're contributing 40k a year to a pension? Can I ask how much you earn? And how much your mortgage was?

Sorry , paid 'off'

I don’t think this is a particularly new idea - many of my dp’s and gp’s generation did that - worked hard, did without, took in lodgers for a while until their careers were established. It wasn’t unachievable to buy a starter home in your twenties.

What’s new is the idea of “retiring” in your mid thirties to travel around the world in a campervan for a couple of decades. Until the money runs out, and it’s not as easy to get a job in your fifties never mind when your work experience is 20 years out of date. And you have no provision made for your old age. Once your joints start creaking living in a van isn’t quite as appealing. And when the van starts breaking down it might not be as easy to replace if you’ve frittered through your assets while seeing the world.

And the 'work hard' so you can afford it. Well no, in some jobs there just isn't the opportunity to earn more money to throw into a house.

I think some of these people may also have bought before crazy prices. Our first house cost 125000, but the previous owners paid 60. We did manage to overpay a bit over the years, andhad about 5 years left. This would have made me mortgage free by mid 40s. But we took the plunge and bought a bigger house.

Being mortgage free still wouldn't have allowed us enough to retire early though. Not with young kids.

@user5656555

I'd say if you can without sacrificing all the social and physical enjoyment of your twenties, then do it. If you can earn and spend well in your twenties can set you up for life.

At a huge cost, losing your 20s sacrificing the social and physical enjoyment of them is a cost too high, there are some things money can't buy and time is one of them.

I didn't though. You can do both. Just don't buy a stupid flashy car, don't buy crazy flash furniture. Don't live with your parents and spend your money mindlessly on Amazon and Asos.

Were sort of doing this. We overpay mortgage and will be free by 40. We intend to carry on working and banking money though so we have options like private schools, investing, choosing more relaxing jobs. We live frugally in the sense that we have cheap phone contracts, have Netflix not Sky, don't buy much by way of clothing or homeware just for a change or go out for coffees or shopping trips for something to do. But we do go to our local cafe once a week as a family. So Id say we mindfully spend and that were very fortunate that if we want something or a holiday then we can. Like we buy family and friends nice gifts but shop around for a good deal.

Our aim is to earn/save/invest to give ourselves and our family options and opportunities. We aren't actively working to very early retirement but we want the security that if one of us got very sick rhe other could step away from work without financial stress.

@Toadsinholes

Those of you who have nearly or paid it off before 40, can I ask how?! Is your house very cheap or do you earn loads, or have inherited some? We have a very average house (200k mortgage) & earn average salaries (60k combined) - there is no way we could ever pay that off early! Surely it’s out of reach for ‘normal’ people?

Bought house for £150k with £40k deposit, now worth £240k 10 years on with £50k left on mortgage. Always overpaid when childcare costs went down or salaries went up rather than just spending the extra. Currently £620 mortgage & over pay by £520 (max allowed). Remortgage every 2/3 years after fixing, reduce term as much as poss each time allowing monthly outgoing to be c. £1000/1,1000 inc overpayment.

Our mortgage was 500k with a 200k deposit when we bought four years ago. Still got 20 years to go. I suppose if we'd moved somewhere else and bought a much smaller property with our 200k we'd be mortgage free. As would many other people! My parents mortgage on a similar sized property was 25 years ago was less than 100k. Around 2xsalary rather than five x salary for us. So obviously it was a lot easier for them to be mortgage free more quickly. These things are all relative.

No chance - school fees will wipe us out

I did a lot of travelling in my 20's whilst renting out a property I'd bought cheaply back then and had doubled in price by the time I returned.

I don't plan to completely retire as I love my job so I'll take my pension but carry on working one day a week or however often I fancy it plus I'll travel again except this time I'll be staying in far nicer hotels as I'll not be backpacking.